Warrington Guardian Sports Editor Mike Parsons marks 30 years of watching Wolves as man and boy, reporter and supporter.

THE first Super League game between Warrington Wolves and Salford City Reds took place in June, 1997.

Wolves have suffered some disappointing defeats against the Reds but perhaps none more so than 10 years ago at The Willows when Wolves lost 26-14.

Warrington slumped to one of the lowest points in the club's history with the record ninth successive defeat.

And with Paris St Germain winning and both Castleford and Oldham showing signs of improvement in narrow defeats, the threat of relegation was growing every week.

To add to Warrington's frustration, the game was there for the taking - Salford were poor but Wolves were simply awful!

A huge army of supporters had journeyed to The Willows expecting to see two sides which had learned something from their World Club Championship tussles with the Aussies.

Instead, they were offered one of the most lacklustre games of rugby they had ever seen, with Warrington looking a shadow of the side which had impressed so much against Auckland a week earlier.

Wolves' game was riddled with every error in the book.

While the dedicated handful gave their all in the cause of victory, others seemed to be on another planet, throwing all the hard work away with juvenile mistakes.

Warrington were not helped by inconsistent refereeing but John Connolly could not be blamed for the defeat.

They were eight points down with only seven minutes gone.

Following a knock on by prop Warren Stevens, centre Nathan McAvoy gave the Reds the perfect start when he spun out of Salesi Finau's tackle, Steve Blakeley converted from the touchline to add to his fourth minute penalty.

Then came another body blow from McAvoy, with Blakeley's accuracy from the touchline rubbing salt into the wounds and it was 14-0 at the break.

An ear-bashing from Darryl Van de Velde saw a rejuventated Warrington take to the field for the second half.

Within six minutes, a comeback had been launched. Lee Briers' precision kick to the corner was gathered by Nigel Vagana who scored his 20th try of the season.

Then Mark Forster got on the end of Paul Sculthorpe's towering to reduce the arrears to just four points.

Warrington suffered a heartbreaking blow as Richard Henare fumbled Kelly Shelford's pass from a scrum near Warrington's line.

Darren Rogers picked up the loose ball before sending Coussons over.

Fata Sini's effort 11 minutes from time finished off the game before Sculthorpe picked up some reward for his relentless efforts when he scored with three defenders on his back.